Coffey

Yeah, it was weird seeing Dave Meltzer put the show over on Twitter saying "that's how you make a star, hope they follow it up!" or whatever... Like, we already know who wins the tournament & that they didn't give him much shine. We saw Wrestlemania last week. Just seemed weird to me. I actually wasn't sure if I was watching the show he was talking about.

Hulk Hogan being a super hero when I was a child. Hulk Hogan being a rebellious heel when I was a cocky teenager. Hulk Hogan nostalgia tour when I was an young man. Hulk Hogan still being alive when I'm a full grown man. ECW hitting it big when I was an older teenager. The Monday Night Wars & being able to "flashback" between RAW & Nitro. Sting Vs. the nWo Run-in finishers. (Nothing beats a Kevin Nash walk-in Lazybomb on a Luchadore for promo time) Parody promos (nWo as the Horsemen, D-X as the Nation) The Rock singing "leaving Sacramento." "Stone Cold" Steve Austin & Kurt Angle with the cowboy hats backstage. The first time I ever saw the Dudley Death Drop & my mouth was dropped open in awe. Holy shit! Early 90's All Japan Pro Wrestling (Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Hansen/Vader/Etc.) Tony Schiavone shilling everything. "Millennium Man Sid is 64-0! He has a good weekend!" (after being like 8-0 on Thunder). Wrestlemania X-Seven. Scott Hall's closing line during his Hall of Fame speech. Old school wrestling themes, like Dusty Rhodes, Hulk Hogan or Slick. Total nostalgia trip for me. Jesse Ventura trying to cover for Greg Valentine by saying "he's just not warmed up yet!" The genuine heat heels in the 70s & 80s got. Especially in the south. Mark Henry's "retirement." Adrian Adonis still being deceptively quick after putting on all the weight. The Clash of the Champions Wedding Skits with Sherri & Col. Parker. Sheamus' new entrance. Bray Wyatt's entrance. All pro-wrestlers doing Dusty Rhodes impressions. "Pay winda, baybee!" The Nintendo 64 wrestling video games. The Samoan Bulldozer Umaga with Armando Alejandro Estrada. The Abraham Washington Show with Tony Atlas laughing. Pro-Wrestling Love Triangles "1-900-909-9900. Kids, get your parents permission before calling." 2005 Ring of Honor. Demolition Ax & Smash being #1 & #2 in the Royal Rumble. The Wrestlemania X Shawn Michaels Vs. Razor Ramon IC title match. There's too many matches for me to start listing them, I guess. The Raven character. I was a huge mark for him in high school. Goldberg's streak. War Games. I could go on forever...

I too, like The Chief above me, can not get into Lucha Libre. At all. I have tried. More than once. I think more than anything, it's all the blown spots, the horns in the crowd & the super slow referees. When I think of everything that I dislike about professional wrestling, The Young Bucks are the total embodiment of that. I have no idea why they're popular, especially online with the most cynical of wrestling fans. I wish WCW would have "won" the Monday Night Wars. Most NXT is kinda boring. Trish Stratus & Lita were both terrible. I don't think Jim Ross is the "best commentator of all-time." I don't even think he was better than Gorilla, let alone some of the color commentators over the years (Ventura, Heenan, Heyman even). I'm sure I could add a lot more but I don't think anyone wants to read all that.

I have so many pet peeves & irks, there's too many to list. One of my big ones right now is the use of people telling other wrestling fans that they should "stop watching" if the product sucks. That they're tired of the complaining, don't wanna read about it, etc. That one really pisses me off. "All you do is complain. If it's that bad, why don't you just stop watching? If I was watching Seinfeld & it sucked, I wouldn't watch it anymore." Buzzwords in WWE are at an all-time high & I dislike most of them. It makes everything sound so unnatural when people are talking. It's not wrestling, it's sports entertainment. They're not fans, they're a part of the WWE Universe. Those aren't women, they are Divas! Those aren't wrestlers, they're superstars! That's not a belt, or a title, it's a championship! I loathe how WWE is all about social media, WWE Network, the WWE App & WWE.com on one hand then turn around and call all internet fans basement dwellers living in their moms basement whining on Twitter. All those "fireflies" holding up their cell phones during Bray Wyatt's entrance? Yeah, all those phones have internet. Spoilers. I hate Dave Meltzer. He's a terrible public speaker, ya know & a bad writer, ya know.. that has a podcast, ya know and a newsletter, ya know. That's like someone that can't cook, ya know, being a chef, ya know. Jim Cornette using his soapbox to talk about non-pro-wrestling things such as politics or religion.

I'm a big Sheamus fan. Time away & a heel turn have helped. The new look is still pretty bad to me but I guess it's some easy cheap heat. New entrance is great though.

This is the first I'm hearing of this. What happened to those dudes?

There's an hour left. We still have Reigns/Show, Miz/Sandow & the main event. Where are Bryan, Ziggler, Sheamus, Rusev, Wyatt, Ambrose, Heyman. You know, all the people I actually watch the show for...

Some of the show does feel different tonight. Like some of the cuffs are off in the promos.

At this point, I just want Stardust to go away entirely. He provides literal nothing to the show.

They could have had J&J distract the referee & run interference after Neville hit the Red Arrows. They could have let Neville hit more high spots. They could have had Neville on the offense more. Instead, he was selling, sitting in headlocks & waiting to come back from commercial breaks. It was all wrong, in my opinion. And I like this open challenge for the U.S. Title from Cena. Hope it becomes a weekly thing. They have to do better than Star Dust though.

And I would argue that the match wasn't "alright" either.

Not only did he lose (which he should probably not be doing yet) he didn't get any shine in the match either. It was all headlocks, commercials breaks, him getting thwarted & then it was over. He looked like a jobber. He can lose to the WWE Champion, no problem. Let him get some shit in to ooh and awe the crowd though.

Rick Martel has the Blindfold Match with Jake Roberts, so that's a pretty big Wrestlemania moment that people would remember. Plus he had the Strike Force run. He was also great in AWA but WWE doesn't always acknowledge non-WWE work. I actually had thought that Stan Hansen was already in the Hall of Fame because I remembered seeing him there. After looking it up, he was there to induct Inoki. Now I'm bummed that he's not in. So yeah, he should be in. I'm sure the Freebirds will go in & Michael Hayes will talk about Gordy for twenty minutes. Rick Rude should have already been inducted as well. What about Sean Waltman? Triple H is a shoe-in at some time. Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall are all in now. HBK said "three down, two to go" so I'm sure they'll make a play for it. He was in the nWo & D-X. His 1-2-3 Kid upset over Razor is memorable. The Undertaker, Triple H & The Rock have all not been inducted yet. Vince McMahon, Jr. I guess too. Now that he's worked in WWE, I imagine Sting will go in. I know he's still in TNA but what about Kurt Angle? Big Van Vader. The Honky Tonk Man. The Steiner Brothers. Demolition. Haku/Meng (surprised he's not in just cause he worked with André & WWE loves having a reason to talk about André). The Big Boss Man would be a good one. Goldberg. There's definitely still big names out there. Jim Cornette, Paul Bearer & Paul Heyman should all go in. Maybe Sable?

Dean Ambrose. You get a "closer-to-truth" Rocky dynamic.. and the ability to pivot the feud if you involve Renee Young as a balance for Lana. I would be on board for this, as long as it doesn't involve Renee & Lana having to take bumps or stop doing what they're already doing.

On paper, it looks like shit. I'm not a big fan of about half of the regulars that NJPW insists on using. The Styles/Ibuki match might be good, so I'll probably seek that out. I don't think I care about any of the other matches.

There for awhile, AJ also looked like she lost a ton of weight & was skinny to an unhealthy degree. I mean, she was always going to be thin, but she was too thin. It got to the point where I couldn't watch her in a match without thinking she was going to get hurt. I remember there being a big stink after she passed out overseas or something and people suggesting that maybe she had developed an eating disorder. I think that was just internet rumor stuff though. I did dig her for awhile. When she was playing the male wrestlers & going from C.M. Punk to Daniel Bryan to Kane and all that stuff with Vickie Guerrero leading up to the wedding. It was the random announcement that she was the new RAW G.M. where everything went south for me. Then she started doing the C.M. Punk light gimmick (as noted above) and it just felt forced. Honestly, I didn't dislike her when she was in a "stable" (if you can call it that) with Dolph Ziggler & Big E. Langston. I liked her as the crazy nerdy chick. I didn't like her as the main event dominate female "shooter", or whatever that was supposed to. Whether she retired or not, that wouldn't change. And she's been half-assing it in-ring for months.

I liked her before her RAW GM stint. Everything after that was meh to me. She had a good run.

If a thread in Rusev results in people getting banned on a message forum, does that make him a heel or a face? What if the people banned lived in America? Outside of the United States? SO MANY QUESTIONS! (insulting people personally has nothing to do with Rusev, the booking, his character or this discussion)

If they cut an hour out of that show, it would have been pretty damn good. That main event didn't do anyone any favors either.

Brock Lesnar is a superstar in a sea of nobodies. Following up the casualties of RAW from his destruction with Damien Mizdow Vs. Curtis Axel was smart, to let people collect themselves & continue to buzz from the carnage. A two-commercial break Divas match? Not feeling it. Both U.S. Title & I.C. Title looked good tonight. Nice to see new faces getting to shine tonight. Kalisto & Neville both looked great. It irks me to no end that Stephanie McMahon gets to emasculate the entire roster week-in & week-out. It doesn't matter if it's The Rock or Brock Lesnar, she talks down to everyone & shows no fear to anyone. It's ridiculous. Complete rubbish. Has been that way for months. Will continue to be that way. Get her off TV. She's fucking terrible.

I haven't read this thread yet but I loved this show. I was marking out all over the place. The pop that Ronda got was amazing! Was happy with the swerve in the main event too. Was OK with Cena winning and Bryan as IC champ. Even the pre-show tag match was a fun spot fest. Liked the show a lot. Will probably watch it again later. Also, that RKO was fucking amazing!

I feel like none of the winners outside of the main event even matter. And despite Brock Lesnar re-signing with WWE, I think Roman Reigns is still going over clean in the middle with a Spear. I do think Brock re-signing makes the main event more intriguing.

Who is clamoring for this match exactly? I don't even think it's a big match from a casual standpoint. It's happened before. Both guys are part time. Last time Rock was around, he was gassed up & blown up about five minutes in. The build-up would feature two guys that are not able to be around each week. Neither man, nor WWE, gains anything from either guy winning or losing that helps them in the future. I just don't think that match sells 100,000 tickets. It just seems like another disaster to me.

What the fuck was that ending?

I said this on Twitter as well. Nothing puts over a promo like Cole immediately dismissing it to shill a phone app.